General science thread

Quote: rxwine

Rare genetic mutation accounts for anxiety and pain free life



https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/at-71-shes-never-felt-pain-or-anxiety-now-scientists-know-why/ar-BBVlpnB?ocid=spartanntp

Quote:

“The ship is amazingly intact,” says Ryan Harris, the lead archaeologist on the project. “You look at it and find it hard to believe this is a 170-year-old shipwreck. You just don’t see this kind of thing very often.”

Taking advantage of unusually calm seas and good underwater visibility, a team from Parks Canada, in partnership with Inuit, earlier this month made a series of seven dives on the fabled wreck. Working swiftly in the frigid water, divers inserted miniature, remotely-operated drones through openings in the main hatchway and skylights in the crew’s cabins, officers’ mess, and captain’s stateroom.

“We were able to explore 20 cabins and compartments, going from room to room,” says Harris. “The doors were all eerily wide open.”

What they saw astonished and delighted them: dinner plates and glasses still on shelves, beds and desks in order, scientific instruments in their cases—and hints that journals, charts, and perhaps even early photographs may be preserved under drifts of sediment that cover much of the interior.

“Those blankets of sediment, together with the cold water and darkness, create a near perfect anaerobic environment that’s ideal for preserving delicate organics such as textiles or paper,” says Harris. “There is a very high probability of finding clothing or documents, some of them possibly even still legible. Rolled or folded charts in the captain’s map cupboard, for example, could well have survived.”

The only area below decks the team was unable to access was the captain’s sleeping quarters. Apparently the last person to leave closed the door. “Intriguingly, it was the only closed door on the ship,” says Harris. “I’d love to know what’s in there.”

Quote:

The last European eyes to see the ships were the crews of two whaling vessels who encountered Erebus and Terror in late July 1845, on the crossing from Greenland to Canada’s remote Baffin Island. After that they were never seen or heard from again.

A brief note found under a cairn gives a bit of the story. Dated April 1848 and signed by Francis Crozier — captain of the Terror, who by then had taken command of the expedition — it stated that the ships had been locked in ice for a year and a half, that 24 of the men were already dead — including Franklin — and that Crozier and the other survivors planned to attempt to walk overland to a remote fur-trading outpost hundreds of miles away on the Canadian mainland. None of them ever arrived.

Quote: petroglyph

https://fortune.com/2019/09/20/google-claims-quantum-supremacy/ Are quantum computers about to become reality?

Quote: Evenbob

Of course the first thing they'll
is build AI machines that will
eventually run our lives. Oh boy.